Xiaomi 18 Fold Goes Official With Its Own Chip and LPDDR6 RAM

Xiaomi has officially launched the Xiaomi 18 Fold in China today, September 7, following an earlier public showing at IFA 2026 in Berlin. The book-style foldable marks Xiaomi’s shift away from the narrower Mix Fold form factor toward a wider, passport-style design, and the company is positioning it directly against devices like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Apple’s upcoming foldable iPhone. There’s no confirmation yet of a global release, so for now this remains a China-only device.

Design and Displays

The 18 Fold pairs a 5.38-inch cover screen with a 7.58-inch inner display, both running at 120Hz with LTPO support and peaking at 4,000 nits of brightness. The inner panel sticks to a 4:3 aspect ratio and uses dual-layer ultra-thin glass. Xiaomi built a new “Dragon Bone” hinge for this generation, claiming 492 structural optimizations went into it. Despite the large internal screen, the phone folds down to 10.68mm and weighs 219g, with an unfolded thickness of just 5.02mm.

XRING O3: Xiaomi’s In-House Silicon

The bigger story here is the chip. Instead of Qualcomm silicon, the 18 Fold runs on Xiaomi’s own 3nm XRING O3 processor, a 10-core CPU with a 16-core GPU and a dedicated NPU, hitting a reported AnTuTu score of around 5.23 million in pre-launch testing. Xiaomi has claimed the O3 can outperform Apple’s A19 Pro in certain workloads, though that’s a company benchmark, not an independent one. Notably, the standard Xiaomi 18 Pro and Pro Max launching alongside it still use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6, so the Fold is currently the only device in the lineup running Xiaomi’s own chip.

LPDDR6 Memory, But Only on the Top Model

The top-spec 16GB+1TB configuration uses LPDDR6 memory supplied by China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), making the 18 Fold the first commercial phone to ship with the new memory standard. The 256GB and 512GB variants stick with LPDDR5X instead, so the memory upgrade is tied specifically to the highest-end configuration.

Camera and Battery

On the back, Xiaomi has fitted a Leica-tuned triple camera system: a 200MP main sensor (reportedly 1/1.56-inch) paired with a Summilux lens, a 50MP periscope telephoto offering 3.5x optical zoom, and a 50MP ultra-wide. The foldable’s inner display also doubles as a viewfinder, letting subjects see how they’re being framed. Battery capacity comes in at 6,000mAh using a silicon-carbon cell with roughly 20% silicon content, charging at 67W wired and 50W wireless, a notable capacity given how thin the phone is.

Pricing and Colors

In China, pricing starts at ¥10,999 for the 12GB+256GB model and scales up to ¥15,999 for the 16GB+1TB Ceramic Limited Edition, which is capped at 1,500 units. The base price converts to roughly $1,639, though that figure shouldn’t be read as a global or Pakistan price. Xiaomi is offering the phone in several finishes, including a cherry red color option, alongside the ceramic special edition.

Software and Availability

The 18 Fold ships with HyperOS 4, and Xiaomi has built out a multitasking layer that supports up to six split-screen windows on the large inner display, leaning on the O3’s NPU for on-device AI processing. Connectivity covers 5G, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 6.0, UWB, and NFC. Retail sales in China begin September 10 at 10:00 AM following today’s pre-order window, but there’s still no word on a global rollout timeline.